


Can't help falling

by Falconette



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abandonment Issues, F/M, Older Jean, relationship, slowly building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-19 03:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falconette/pseuds/Falconette
Summary: (Older) Jean, captain of a guerilla group that is using your village as an occasional hideout, is getting to know you, but in these troubled times of internal and external enemies, both of you bring your issues into the mess that is bringing you together.





	1. 1

**Can't help falling**

 

In the village, we were taught to keep our business close to our yards and gardens and leave the forest to things that belonged there. The woods provided timber for our huts, wood for our hearths, wild game, berries and mushrooms for our plates, but was also a place of shadows even during brightest summer days.

It was not only wild beasts we were looking out for.

During daytime, wandering titans prowled and lurked in the most unlikely places like bottoms of wells and solitary houses. During nighttime, groups of king’s guards combed the terrain, looking for titans that crawled in through breach on the Wall and for renegade paramilitary insurgents who lived on the run. The state officials were at times more frightening because they could not be outsmarted and shaken off in thickets, and cruelty of their insatiable inquisitiveness could not be matched by a titan’s blind instinct to follow the trace of human flesh.

For all their surprise visits and investigations, despite hints and suspicions that made them circle around us like a cat around a mouse hole, the king’s men did not find out we had been hiding men and women with the double-winged emblem among us.

Our chief sat with one of their leaders long into the night once, talking in hushed tones for such a long time that all of us young folk that gathered outside windows to see what these ragged strangers with haunted eyes were like fell asleep in the grass before the meeting finished. Tomorrow, the chief’s decision had been conveyed in hushed tones to every person of the village; the strangers were to be treated as friends, to be fed, kept hidden and safe whenever they appear.

Ever since, an inconspicuous barn had been provided where mysterious travelers could find a dry and warm place to stay, rest and heal. In time, I started to understand who they were and why our chief chose to silently rebel against the capital, hiding members of the Survey corps who came and went through our small community, some only once, some many times, for longer or shorter periods. In return, when they were around, they kept the woods safe from titans and helped out wherever their help was needed.

*  *  *

He was one of those men you notice right away. I remember he came to help out with building of the house for my fiancé and me in early Spring. Despite the chill, the workers soon broke sweat from manhandling of heavy logs, so the young soldiers first pulled up their sleeves and then took off their shirts too keep them from unnecessary staining. The difference between them and the village boys was evident.  They were all lean and wiry, honed by hours in 3D maneuver gear harnesses and constant alertness, but Jean in particular caught my eye even then. Standing next to my fiancé he was like a wolf to a domestic dog, similar but a completely different animal, and I blushed at my indecent thoughts.

“That is captain Kirstein,” Johanna, my neighbor and friend, a girl my age, whispered conspiratorially in my direction as we prepared morsels for the men, while her mischievous eyes rested on Jean’s sweat slicked back where chaffing from harnesses zigzagged in angry red. She then pointedly looked at me under her brow, leaning in closer with loaves of freshly baked bread pressed against her chest. “He is a notorious playboy,” she whispered.

“A what?” I mouthed frowning at an unfamiliar word, feeling a little fluttered, as if Johanna had guessed the focus of my thoughts. Thoughts no proper girl betrothed to be married should nurture.  My gaze inadvertently searched for the man I would share this house with once it was finished and found him, hands in pockets, mesmerized by one soldier’s accounts about towns they passed through.

Johanna giggled quietly, content that she knew something I didn’t, “You know…a ladies’ man.” She lectured, probably repeating words of a boy from the corps she was secretly seeing. Registering my blank stare, she sighed exasperated and said slowly, as if explaining to a child, “He is _very popular_ with young female recruits. And village girls. And town…”

“Oh!” I blushed and nodded, finally realizing and giving Jean’s tall figure another once-over. The broad shoulders only accentuated narrowness of his waist, setting his back in a lovely, enticing arch. No wonder women flocked to him.

As if sensing our eyes on him, Jean’s head turned to us and he half-smiled, making us both blush, look away and hastily continue laying out the food.

* * *

He came back in the Fall.

By then, my house had been finished and all my future plans laid to waste.

The barn was providing lodging for a group of five that appeared in a heavy rain, battered from flight and meeting with titans that didn’t go well. There was not a single soldier among them who did not need tending. After Jean brought them to safety, he collapsed in hay, too weak to send for help so they were only discovered in the morning. We women took turns in changing their bandages and keeping them fed and listening to incoherent stories about comrades eaten alive. Their pale, bruised faces spoke more than words about what they saw and, especially in two soldiers who were even younger than me, I clearly saw a doubt about the choices they made. I empathized, for I too carried regrettable choices I could not run away from.

They sat like broken birds, crumbled and terrified, trying to come to terms with the reality of death and life.

To avoid looking in their tormented eyes, I turned to looking after Jean. Apart from general exhaustion, he didn’t appear to have any major injuries, but was restless, tossing and mumbling in his slumber. Looking at his gaunt face, it was hard to believe he was somewhere around my age. With his hair longer and stubble growing into a beard, it seemed years have passed for him since the last Spring.

I was wiping sweat off his face and neck when his eyes suddenly snapped open and his fingers grabbed my arm out of nowhere, his other empty hand trying to operate non existent blade switch. His feral glare drained all power and sensation from me, even the pain his iron grip inflicted.

After a moment he blinked and then blinked away the incomprehension, the reflex to fight and persevere, remembering who I was and where we were. He looked around slowly.

“H…” his voice betrayed him so he licked his cracked lips and started again, “How many of us made it?” His hand was still clutching my arm and it was really starting to hurt, but I didn’t dare to try shaking him loose.

“Five.” I stammered with water dripping from the towel and through my fingers onto the side of Jean’s face, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Only five?” he mouthed, the voice resonating so deep in his throat it sounded like a raspy attempt at a cough.

I hesitated, then nodded, my heart finally starting to calm down. He followed my gaze with his to the four huddled figures, surrounded by concerned village women and plates of untouched food.

“Shit.” He looked away and at the ceiling, baring his teeth in a grimace that scared me. “Shit, shit,” he growled, clenching his jaw, the cleft between his brows deepening in the flickering candle light. Then I understood and moved my hand to wipe the sides of his face again before anyone else could see.

Jean’s eyes turned to me, his fingers releasing my arm, his expression softening and for that one moment it was more painful to watch him cry softly than in helpless anger.

* *  *

He came up to me after several days, when he was strong enough to walk again and it was safe to move about freely. I was hanging the washed sheets the soldiers used, struggling with the weight of wet fabric, when invisible hands took the burden into the air and easily folded it across the strung rope.

“This is set too low.” Jean commented matter-of-factly, picking up another wet sheet and repeating the process with no visible effort. Then another. “The linen is almost touching the ground.”

I stood by, letting him express his gratitude in a practical way, admiring the way muscles in his long forearms knotted when he used his hands. He seemed fully recovered and his cheeks appeared fuller, tinged with a healthier color. He was only a haircut and a shave away from that handsome, cheeky soldier I knew, but I was not going to tell him _that._

“That was the highest I could set up.” I shrugged, taking the empty washbowl from his hands. His eyes were studying me, intelligent and foxlike and I wondered self-consciously what they saw when they looked at me. A simple village girl? A pretty girl, maybe?

“Why don’t you get somebody to set it up higher for you?” he asked, shifting his attention over my shoulder to my house where nothing stirred.

“If it was any higher, I wouldn’t be able to hang the laundry at all.” I couldn’t keep a defiant undertone from my voice, suddenly angry at this vagabond’s prying into my life.  Jean either didn’t register or didn’t care to register my growing defensiveness.

“Weren’t we building this house in Spring for a couple?”  he frowned, shifted his weight to his other foot, apparently not planning to leave as his eyes swept from roof to windows in a professional curiosity.

So he remembered.

“Yes,” I pushed through my clenched throat, “but now he is gone.”

Jean raised his eyebrows, his full focus on me again, then on my vacant ring finger, and when I offered no explanations, he quietly asked with a somber expression on his face, “Dead?”

“No.” I spat, half-turning to go, feeling the bitter flow rising in me again. The wounds were still too fresh. But Jean waited for elaboration and I don’t even know why my mouth opened and I said in a tired, wounded voice, hating the unmasked weakness in it, ”Got tired of village and decided to see what town life is like.”

There was a moment of flat silence between us before I finally dared to look up at Jean and his unreadable gaze. Then I turned and started for the house.

“When the sheets dry, I will take them down for you,” he declared, “just tell me where to fold them.”

I stopped, closed my eyes and said without turning to him, “Thank you for your offer but with all things considered, I simply cannot have you around my house too much. I’m sorry.”

“What things?” I heard him make couple of steps towards me, his boots striding noisily on the gravel.

I sighed heavily, “Things like reputation of an unmarried woman living by herself. This is… not a town.” My voice almost gave out in the end. I could not blame my fiance for wanting something different, something better, but I still hated him for not saying that before we got engaged. Or for not even asking me if I wanted to join him. Now, here, I was just damaged goods, the one who got left behind. Everybody knew although nobody talked about it. Not in front of me, anyway.

I felt Jean was somewhere behind me, somewhere close and I continued hastily, composing myself, “Moreover, things like your reputation.”

“My reputation?” his voice was genuinely incredulous. Just as I was about to turn and face him, red in the face and completely without an idea what to say next, a shrill female voice called out the Jean’s last name and the title.

It was a young girl, one of the party members, who seemed to have recuperated nicely as the young ones do. She came over into his personal space without a thought and nodded at me with a thankful smile. Despite hardships she went through, under dirty uniform and countless tiny scratches and bruises, it was plain to see she was very pretty. And very familiar with the captain.

My look must have spelled out my thoughts because Jean said with a shrug, unprompted, “Life is short,” as if offering an apology or an explanation, earning a confused look by the girl.

“Anyway,” he straightened up and cleared his throat, “I wanted to thank you for what you did. For all of us.”

“Don’t mention it, soldiers.” I bowed my head slightly, formally, before going inside, “Such were my chieftain’s orders.”

* * *

Tomorrow morning, I found Jean taking down the dried sheets. I approached and waited for him to hand over the neat pile of folded linen while he pointedly kept on the other side of the strung rope, keeping behind the imaginary line.

I felt a pang of regret as I watched his deft, calloused hands straighten last creases on the white fabric. I was too harsh yesterday. These people were a heartbeat away from death most of the time. They chose a different life, of course they would be living by different rules.

Besides, I saw nothing wrong when Johanna fooled around with that young soldier that stayed here before summer. Why would then captain’s Kirstein’s private matters concern me?

“Look, I am sorry about yesterday.” I bit my lip, not knowing how to make amends, “I am just brewing some tea…”

“No, you were right.” Jean wasn’t looking at me, focused on the task at hand, “It would only complicate things.” He paused, making me wonder what he meant. “Anyway, come night we are setting off again.”

“So soon?” words left my mouth before I could think. “I mean, you are not completely healed yet.”

“We are fit enough to travel. If we take care to avoid troubles, we’ll be alright.” Jean answered impassively, absorbed in tightening of the rope around wooden poles. It has been ages since they were fixed and I simply lacked the strength to do it myself.

Suddenly, it became all important that this soldier doesn’t leave with a bitter aftertaste. Would he ever return to this village? Or will he rather hike to the next friendly place?

Will I ever see him again?

“I didn’t mean to offend you.” I offered conciliatorily, helplessly clutching the batch of dried linen to my chest. The old, nauseating feeling of abandonment made my hands cold as ice.

“Why would I be offended?” his voice was flat as he fastened the last knot. Then he looked at me for the first time that day, a warm glint softening his eyes.

“Do you believe everything you hear?” he asked after a pause.

I stared at him, blinking, and eventually shook my head unconvincingly. He studied my face for a while, then gave me a crooked smile and a mock salute. “Well, I’ll be off then.”

“Good luck.” I responded to his back , adding quietly, “Goodbye.”

 

End of chapter 1


	2. 2

Chapter 2

They came back, three out of the original five from the group, sometime during that night. I heard the commotion and voices but was too afraid to go outside, so I dressed and waited by the door, wringing my hands in fear. For hours nothing happened and the night grew still again, but I knew the peace was deceptive.

Rapping of knuckles on the front door made me jump and it took a moment for village chief’s voice to register inside my panicked mind. I moved the latch and peered outside to see his outline, a dark outline in moonlight standing on my porch with a tall hooded figure.

I heard the words ‘ambush’ and ‘hot pursuit’ as he pushed the hooded man through my front door, insisting I kept him hidden until dawn. I could tell it was Jean underneath that cowl right away, I needed no candle to confirm his identity, so when the door slammed shut, I didn’t reach for the fire. Instead, we stood in darkness without making a sound, intently listening to the night that grew quiet again.

“I am sorry to impose on you,” he eventually murmured.

“What are you talking about? Your life is on the line.” my voice was hushed and urgent.

“So is yours if I am found here. King’s men will come searching,” the voice from inside the hood was serious and hard. He was right. “I will leave if you don’t want me here.”

I clenched my fists, steeling myself. He had nowhere else to go.

“No,” I breathed, my mind made up, “Stay.”

He relaxed, allowing his shoulders to slump. Then he placed his swords out of sight but close at hand and sat on the floor, leaning his back against a wall.

“Thank you,” Jean pulled the cowl of his hood down, his revealed face just a pale blur in darkness. Even so I could make out dark hollows around his eyes that chilled me. “You can sleep now, I will stand guard here.”

The polite but firm voice he used reminded me that, even though this was my house, we were on his turf now. He positioned himself so he was facing the windows with a small dagger accessible at his waist, and poised himself comfortably and vigilantly, like a predatory animal patiently lying in wait. And then he went completely still and quiet, which was somehow the scariest, because I have known him to be just the opposite.

I lingered for a moment more, a deep realization that I did not know this man in my kitchen at all hitting me like a wind gale. I then turned and went to my bedroom obediently but could not sleep at all.

* * *

The sun was already high when I finally dared to venture outside my bedroom and step into the kitchen with slow reluctance, wondering why Jean didn’t call for me by now, only to find him sleeping with his forehead resting on his knees and his cape pulled tight around him. Without a burning stove, the house was almost as cold as the outside, so I tiptoed inside to get the fire started and the soldier promptly flinched awake at the shuffle of my feet.

He first looked around, his eyes instantly clear, before nodding a croaked ‘Morning’ in my direction. Running one hand through his long hair to comb it aside, he got up and started helping me with the firewood. I noticed he did not even take off his boots or any of his equipment throughout the night.

“Did you… Do you want couple of hours of proper sleep?” I glanced at the spot on the floor where he sat and wondered if I’d ever be able to fall asleep somewhere so uncomfortable.

“No, it is alright,” his voice was low and steady, as if he was preserving his strength, “I am used to getting by on naps.” He noticed my gaze, “This was better than most places I’ve been to. At least it was dry.”

I worked silently for a while, not knowing what to say. Tending soldiers in a barn was one thing. Having a fugitive in my home was a different thing. The more I thought about it, the more I regretted opening my door last night.

The fire was lit. Jean moved away, attentively studying the woods outside through the curtains. It was becoming awkward. Just yesterday I was entertaining thoughts about inviting him for some tea and today I felt like I brought in a wild cougar thinking it was a house cat. His broad back now appeared more intimidating than appealing and it was dawning on me the muscles of his arms were there for a purpose which was not building of houses…

“Are you alright?” his voice brought me back. Jean was looking at me, his face serious, but he kept to the other side of the room and I realized it was him trying not to me menacing.

“Do you want to eat something?” A stupid question. Of course he would, he must be starving by now.

“Only if you have enough,” Jean replied, giving away none of the fatigue, hunger of fear he must have felt. For him nothing really had been resolved.  He was a hunted man and the search party was yet to come to our village. He needed to eat and recuperate as soon as possible.

“Of course.” I answered, got a pot out and moved him aside with one jerk of my chin. There was finally a difference I could make, anything just to keep myself busy and not thinking too much. “Go and wash yourself, I’ll have something ready by then and...” 

I looked him up and down. His almost ragged clothes were patched up, dirty and worn down by the gear harnesses, and remembered I had a closet full of things my fiance had left behind. I couldn’t bring myself to burn them, a part of me hoping he would one day come back and wear them again. “I’ll get you some new things to wear too.”

Jean opened his mouth to say something, but eventually only nodded his head in thanks and followed me to the inside of the house.

When he emerged into the kitchen again, his long wet hair hanging almost down to his shoulders, wearing the familiar clothes on an unfamiliar body, my hands stopped moving and my breath caught. This was not my man, I had none, I reminded myself.

My vision blurred so I turned back to the stove, but not before I saw his hesitation to enter and sit at the table. He must have seen my reaction. He didn’t say anything though, patiently waiting for me to put the food on the plate and serve him. It took me several long minutes and he granted me the time without a protest, thanking me sincerely when the plate was set in front of him.

He ate in silence and was on his third serving when we heard purposeful footsteps from the outside. In a flash, Jean was on his feet and at the spot where he had hidden his swords, a grim expression on his face.

“It is the chief,” I squeaked, peering through a window, equally terrified of the noises outside as of Jean’s instant reaction.

With a trembling hand, I opened the door even before the knock, letting the first man of the village inside. His graying head seemed even whiter in the daylight, as he appeared to have aged since I last saw him. Apparently I was not the only one with a sleepless night behind me and I suddenly wondered if I also looked like an uncombed lunatic. In all the commotion, it hasn’t occurred to me to check the mirror.

“I will not stay long,” the chief said as he sat on one of the stools and Jean lowered himself on another, still tense like a strung bow. “As the highest ranking officer among the group, we have decided that you will stay with us for the time being and the others will return to your main group after they shake off the pursuit.”

Jean’s eyes suddenly blazed. “Who decided that!?” he barked at the chief with a flash of teeth and I took an involuntary step backwards. His ferocity was dangerous.

The older man sighed tiredly, he must have been expecting this reaction, “The village council and other members of your group. They have already left before the dawn to confuse the trackers.”

“I am the most experienced member of the team,” Jean growled back, stringing his words dangerously slowly, his eyes pinning the village chief down, “With me there would be a better chance of escaping for all of us. The king’s men must have already surrounded the area and will start tightening the circles. It will be almost impossible to elude them.”

The older man shook his head. “We knew you would insist to go with them. The truth is, they will probably get caught, it is the chance they decided to take. But at least you will be safe.”

“Goddammit!” Jean shouted and stomped his booted foot down hard in helpless frustration.

“Captain Kirstein,” the chief deliberately emphasized, getting Jean’s attention, ”this village decided to risk punishment, or worse, by hiding an insurgent fugitive because we believe you are important enough. Your comrades were willing to risk their lives so you could have a better chance at keeping your head. With all due respect, we are not doing this for you, but for the cause you represent and, in the end, for our own sake. So please, bear with it.”

Jean blinked at the man as if he had just slapped him. Then his eyes shifted to me shuddering by the door like he only now remembered I was also in the room, before looking away in shame.

“Thank you for everything,” Jean said to no one in particular after composing himself, his eyes fixed on the half eaten meal before him. “I was out of line.”

“Son,” the older man put his big hand on Jean’s shoulder, “It’s been hard for all of us and it is nowhere near over. The king’s patrols are arriving from the capital and will be staying in this and neighboring villages until they conclude the investigation. I was already asked to hand over the village registers.” Jean’s eyes gravely met his. “I barely had the time to list you as the head of this house.”

I leaned against a window to stop myself from falling.


End file.
